I've been having a really good time experimenting with glitch hunting as well as speedrunning, and I hope it isn't spammy to post this here but I managed to find a consistent-ish setup for a known skip in HP3 for GameCube too:

the WR holder found this skip MONTHS ago but I'm the only one who's managed to get the movement required to replicate it with any consistency so far

So I'm only announcing this because it's a pretty cool and unique one-time dealio (I figure at this point people know where to find me if they want to watch 8,000 Martel Temple resets for 6 hours), but tomorrow at noon PT I'm going to be giving a demo of a panel I've prepared for Aselia Con, which I'm attending next weekend!

The panel is on approaching Tales of Symphonia as a speed game. It's meant to be delivered to casual players of the series, so my intention is to give a glimpse to people entirely unfamiliar with speedrunning it as to how such a game is optimized and the kinds of mechanics we exploit. I go over all of the major discoveries over the years and break down how they work, including footage of them in action in the run, and several of which are kind of hilarious or stupidly broken. I personally find it an absolutely fascinating topic, especially seeing how different the run is now from its early days; so if you think this would interest you I'd love people to stop by and give feedback! I don't want to bore people or be overly technical, but I do want to give credit where due and emphasize just how many people have contributed to getting the route where it is today while keeping it interesting.

My goal is to give a panel that's engaging to casual players but also potentially informative to speedrunning veterans. It's a hard balance to strike and the only way I'll know I've made it is if people stop by and tell me if it's interesting or not. If you have any desire to know more about the specific ways people have broken this video game, stop by!

Thanks for coming to my shameless self promotion post. <3

Edit: here is the panel demo! I believe I say a few bad words throughout so language warning. It is a long video, about an hour, so TLDW different people found stuff and we go fast now.

I have nowhere else to really post this and it's not enough to actually make a topic so I'll just talk about it here

I'm learning the Tales of the Abyss New Game speedrun for 3DS, which is a super interesting experience because the game is MOSTLY the same as the PS2 version, but somehow certain hitboxes and timing things are different because of the different FPS and resolution. This means that I need to learn the PS2 route (which is what everyone runs), but then practice each fight and make certain changes; I basically have to test and tweak the route myself because no one else runs this version. For example the Liger Queen fight, in PS2 they just spam neutral attacks for the first phase and she gets stunlocked, but for some reason in 3DS that does not keep her locked down and I had to experiment with what combo to use that would give the best DPS but also lock her down.

I don't love doing big routing stuff because it's dealing with too many variables, but I am thoroughly enjoying making *minor* additions and changes to fights and adapting *slightly* for the port. It's been cool and I feel like I'm contributing in a more meaningful way since Abyss doesn't really have documentation the way Symphonia does